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Comment by roc | Hacker News Reader

We did eventually get bodies, but only fairly recently. We had scraps before that, but those were often dismissed and had their aberrant characteristics ascribed to mutation or decomposition. In hindsight we have identified them as being of colossal squid, but that was anything but accepted at the time. It wasn't really until the 2000's and a live specimen was discovered that it was generally accepted that these things were real.

And, again, my point isn't whether Bigfoot does or doesn't exist. But whether the logical argument survives such abstraction. And I don't think it does.

The inexistence of bigfoot in the Pacific Northwest doesn't really speak to the (un)likelihood of the Yeti in the Himalayas. Nor does the lack of evidence for elves and goblins in Europe speak to the likelihood of an Orang Pendek.

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I think the article addresses your point nicely. People reportedly see bigfoot everywhere, all the time. For so many citings, we really should have an abundance of physical evidence, but we just don't.

Giant squid citings however are rare. The infrequent discovery of physical evidence is therefore not particularly troubling. (And before we found any credible physical evidence, the lack of physical evidence was still less troubling than the lack of physical evidence for bigfoot).

(Also not covered by the article: Thanks to sperm whales, who eat the things and sport scars from fights with them, we've actually had credible physical evidence of giant squid for quite some time. As far as I can tell nobody was mistaking these things for abnormally large regular squid since at least the 19th century, and people have been finding credible intact (although dead) specimens of them since about that same time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_giant_squid_specimens_a...

"Steenstrup wrote a number of papers on giant squid in the 1850s. He first used the term "Architeuthus" (this was the spelling he chose) in a paper in 1857. A portion of a giant squid was secured by the French gunboat Alecton in 1861, leading to wider recognition of the genus in the scientific community. From 1870 to 1880, many squid were stranded on the shores of Newfoundland. For example, a specimen washed ashore in Thimble Tickle Bay, Newfoundland on 2 November 1878; its mantle was reported to be 6.1 m (20 ft) long, with one tentacle 10.7 m (35 ft) long, and it was estimated as weighing 2.2 tonnes.[citation needed] In 1873, a squid "attacked" a minister and a young boy in a dory in Bell Island, Newfoundland. Many strandings also occurred in New Zealand during the late 19th century.")

> "Giant squid citings however are rare."

That's missing my question. Colossal squid sightings are rare, but "sea monsters" are sighted everywhere, all the time. And if we're expected to roll up the large bipeds (bigfoot, yeti, skunk ape, letiche, et al -- many of which with very distinct reported features) shouldn't we have rolled up "sea monsters" and dismissed the colossal squid until (almost literally) someone dropped it onto our faces? Granted, that isn't far from what happened, but shouldn't we have learned from that experience, rather than seek to codify the logic?

> "we've actually had credible physical evidence of giant squid for quite some time."

Accounts, but a dearth of specimen. Should someone discover the Orang Pendak tomorrow, surely hindsight will declare credible the records of the early 20th century dutch colonists. But as of this moment, it's far from generally accepted that these creatures exist, let alone that those accounts are actually credible.

And the logic of this article is literally arguing that we ought to weigh the likelihood of Orange Pendak, based on whether other creatures on other continents, that just happen to be roughly the same shape, have any credible evidence.

Sightings of other assorted sea monsters are common, but the frequency of sea monster sightings is still not as concerning as the frequency of bigfoot sightings because we typically expect evidence of shit in the sea to be less forthcoming. This is the key takeaway from the article: not all improbabilities are made equal. Failure to find evidence in one case is not necessarily as damming as failure to find evidence in another case.

Rolling up all "sea monsters" and all "other great apes" only makes sense if all of these "sea monsters" are said to be basically big tentacled squidy things... The reason we roll all those "other great ape" claims together is because, frankly, it is all the same shit. Hairy biped, grunts a lot, leaves no trace like a model boyscout, etc. Same story, different continent.

> Accounts, but a dearth of specimen.

No. We have had credible specimens of giant squid since the 1800s. This isn't in hindsight, they were quickly accepted at the time by the scientific community as credible.

> We did eventually get bodies, but only fairly recently.

While living giant squid have only been filmed recently, their bodies have been washing ashore and studied for over a hundred years.

>It wasn't really until the 2000's and a live specimen was discovered that it was generally accepted that these things were real.

Not true. Many dead giant squids have been caught in fishing nets or have washed ashore and have been studied by scientists or even put on display in museums for years. Additionally, scars from giant squid suckers are common on certain whales.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_giant_squid_specimens_a...

The fact that people all over describe similar things indicates that people have a predisposition to see human-like shapes. Therefore, people seeing human-like shapes is very poor evidence - whereas if the claims were more geographically (or environmentally) localized it would be comparatively likely to be telling us about features of that space (like existence of a creature) rather than features of humans.

Of course, memes cluster as well, so it's not really clean-cut...

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